With Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows on the way, there’s been a lot of press lately, including this article with The Daily Mail. There’s some great insight into his phoenix-like rise with thanks to Richard Attenborough and how his entire life has had a British influence (including eccentricities in his early childhood). Check out an excerpt below, then head over to the website for the full thing.

Team Downey – yes, that really is the name – is based in an ultra-modern $6 million three-storey building in the terminally hip, bohemian Venice district of Los Angeles.

It exists purely to maintain Robert Downey Jr’s thriving public image as the most irresistible brand on the block – actor, writer, producer, potential director.

One entire wall on the ground floor is given over to pop-art portraits of every single employee, but by far the largest is that of Downey and his wife. The emphasis might be on the team aesthetic, but there’s no ambiguity about who’s ultimately in charge. Ascend to the upper floors and you find a large kitchen, three ridiculously plush bedrooms, a projection room and a terrace with barbecue and swimming pool.
‘No nation on Earth can touch the English for eccentricity,’ said Downey Jr

‘No nation on Earth can touch the English for eccentricity,’ said Downey Jr

On the expansive top floor, Downey greets me with a big movie-star smile. With a regal curtsy and a self-mocking grin, he goes off in search of coffee for us both.

He’s surprisingly slim and, at 46, the only hints of middle age are a few creases around the eyes and flecks of grey in his goatee. His boyish enthusiasm remains undimmed. Having returned, he grabs a handful of vitamin bottles and a box of nicotine gum.

‘I’m off the smokes again,’ he explains.

FOR MORE, GO HERE.

Congratulations to Robert & Susan!!

Oscar-nominated Actor Robert Downey, Jr., star of the “Iron Man” movies, and his wife Susan are expecting their first child together, his spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday.

The 46 year-old actor and his second wife met on the set of “Gothika” in 2003, and married in New York in 2005.

“Robert and Susan could not be more excited over this news. They can’t wait to welcome this new baby into their wonderful family,” Downey’s spokesman said in People magazine.

The baby is due early 2012.

Early in his career, Downey was plagued by problems with alcohol and drug use, and he even spent time in jail. He went through rehab and managed a career comeback in the 2000s, and he has credited Susan with helping him recover.

The actor has a 17 year-old son, Indio Falconer Downey, from his previous marriage to actress Deborah Falconer, to whom he was married for 11 years. They divorced in 2004.

Downey has previously received Oscar nominations for his roles in “Chaplin” and “Tropic Thunder” and is currently reprising his “Iron Man” role for the upcoming 2012 film “The Avengers.”

Source

Robert Downey Jr. is a man who appreciates the finer and more literate things in life. And apparently he finally finished reading Inherent Vice, the novel by Thomas Pynchon about:

“Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello, a private eye based in Los Angeles in the late 1960s. He’s a believer in the psychedelic free-love era, and his case involves an ex-girlfriend, her real estate billionaire boyfriend and a kidnapping.”

[READ THE REST HERE]